Megan Rosswell doesn’t want marriage and family. Raised a strict Baptist and now a customer support analyst for a minicomputer company, she wants fast life and a fast man to share it with. That means expensive clothes, travel, food, and plenty of wine to wash it down.
During a Nor’easter, she hooks up with Donald Alexander, a smooth-talking pilot. Yet she can’t forget Stan Zambinskyi, the handyman she’d loved for years.
The rich life takes its toll, leaving her drained. Then Donald is drunk on the job, and fired for refusing rehab. Flying for drug lord is the best he can do.
After a family tragedy, Megan takes custody of her small nephew, and becomes a landlady, Stan’s employer and the mother of a baby girl.
When Donald dumps a load and her baby is kidnapped, Megan must fight for her life and her child. Set in the minicomputer boom of the 1980s, Megabyte Rush captures a time when disk storage was king and working women discovered the true meaning of independence.
Megabyte Rush – Excerpt
Publisher: Outskirts Press (October, 2008)
The cavernous auditorium was a warehouse of unfinished walls, unassembled kiosks, stacked crates, piles of carpeting, in various hues, armies of potted plants, many with brilliant flowers, and foam packaging strewn about the cold cement floor. A chill wind blew in from the open cargo bay. The place reeked of sawdust, new plastic and gasoline. Burly men drove forklifts, carting crates and boxes, beeping as they went. Shivering, Megan scanned the floor map, then peetred up at the overhead row signs, noting her destination.
The Smith Labs booth lay at the center of the sprawling maze. Within hours, order would win over chaos, and the place would dazzle the eyes, showcasing the best computers in the world. She nodded a terse greeting at a few other early-risers–support staff like her, judging by disk packs and battered briefcases. She took a breath and headed into the maze, calculating that she had to finish by three–four at the latest. The show would open promptly at six.
She looked down at her copy of the booth plan. There was to be a registration table, a small stage, complete with a black velvet curtain that flanked a ten-foot high video wall, several rows of folding chairs and three tubular demonstration kiosks. She nodded at a worker who was placing the last kiosk in the Smith Labs area. Pale peach squares of carpet, bordered with aqua and black, rose in stacks beside potted plants that would flank the stage. Potted flowers in a wild profusion of colors, intended to line the front of the stage, surrounded the registration table, now hidden beneath several boxes.
She plucked a pair of eight-inch disks from her briefcase. Light and flexible, they were easier to carry through airports than a bulky hard disk pack; and attracted a lot less attention. Each disk contained a product demo: one showing the DataStorage-7’s ease of use, and the other a Hawaiian insurance carrier’s application with links to their mainframe — the reason for the booth’s colorful theme.
The Chicago District was sending Naomi Wickham, nicknamed Tootsie by some of Megan’s colleagues, with the third demo–if she bothered to show up. Tootsie had a reputation for promising things she couldn’t deliver.
She quickened her pace, seeing Scott Hibbard, Smith Labs’ show manager and Adam’s right-hand man, heading her way. He was a bundle of optimism, a pleasure to work with. Tall and gangly, he had three cute kids and a devoted wife. He was deep in conversation with the DataStorage-7 hardware crew. One of the engineers was giving hand signals to a forklift operator, who was carting a load of boxes containing the DataStorage-7s. Scott waved to her as he and another engineer began unloading the boxes.
“Morning, Scott.” She smiled at him, then exchanged curt nods with the engineers. She didn’t like them; just as they detested her. In weekly support meetings, their jokes were often at her expense. She turned to Scott. “What can I do to help?”
“Morning to you, too, Megan.” Scott moved away from the box and took her extended hand. “If you have to ask that, we’re in deep yogurt. I was about to ask you the same.” He turned his head slightly, his glasses glinting, his smile playful. “Time for some music, eh?”
“Of course,” she said and laughed. “What’s a computer show without some tunes?”